Iran's Jews are forced to stay
DR DAVID Morrison (Letters, September 21) should not go unchallenged when yet again he repeats his unsubstantiated claim that it is a "fact" that "25,000 Jews have chosen to stay in Iran, when they are in a position to leave. . ."
The real truth is that Iran's remaining Jews have not freely "chosen" to remain. Rather, they have been forced to stay there for two simple reasons:
1. Any Jew who even dares to apply for a passport immediately gets interrogated and then placed under surveillance.
2. Any Jew who does eventually receive a passport and travels abroad is forced to leave a family member behind. This is clearly to ensure that Jews travelling abroad will be deterred from staying abroad.
In effect, the Iranian regime is holding the entire Jewish community of around 24,000 people captive.
In light of these facts, surely Dr Morrison is willing to accept that these people deserve our greatest sympathy for not having the right to emigrate freely, a right that both he and I enjoy, should we ever need to exercise it.
Dr Ivor Shorts
Dublin 16
Irish Independent
